


search my body for scars

by Coffee_Flavored_Kisses



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Patrick's POV, does this fic make my depression look fat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 20:23:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20681408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coffee_Flavored_Kisses/pseuds/Coffee_Flavored_Kisses
Summary: Patrick's scars cataloged through the years.





	search my body for scars

**Author's Note:**

> title inspired by siken.

When Patrick was seven years old, he decided to run away from home. Nothing terrible had happened exactly, and there was certainly nothing his parents had done wrong. It had just been a long day, his best friend had gone fishing for the weekend, and he couldn’t quite grasp the concept of timetables. He made it as far as the Briars’ house before he realized he wasn’t equipped to leave home. He hadn’t packed nearly enough food, had forgotten his jacket, and didn’t really have a destination in mind. So, he turned on his heel, began the seven-block trek back home, and immediately tripped on a crooked bit of sidewalk.

Left knee. Three inches long. The first scar he could remember getting.

When Patrick was twelve, he asked a girl to the school dance for the first time. Her name was MaryBeth, and she was a very lonely girl who was always quite kind to Patrick. She sat next to him in geography and handed him sticks of gum under the desk. He knew she had a crush on him, and he didn’t have a crush on anybody, so he asked her to his first dance in junior high school. She said no. Her mom didn’t let her go to dances with boys. Patrick was embarrassed, of course, but it didn’t bother him that MaryBeth wouldn’t be able to go. In fact, something about it was a relief. He asked if she was allowed to play baseball with boys on weekends at Salamander Park. She said she was, but that she didn’t want to get her clothes too dirty. He told her she could stand in right field and catch fly balls and he’d cover her so she wouldn’t have to dive. He loved diving. He loved it so much that sometimes he did it just to show off. So, when they went to their first ballgame, MaryBeth, Patrick, and six or seven other boys, Patrick wanted to be sure she could see how dedicated he was to the sport. Tommy Poularias hit a line drive deep to right, Patrick went airborne, and the next thing he knew, MaryBeth was crying and leaving because she couldn’t stand the sight of blood. There wasn’t much blood, but it was enough for stitches.

Forehead. Inch and a half. He had headaches for two weeks after.

When Patrick was sixteen, his best friend set him up with his sister, Rachel. Rachel was a nice girl, cute, funny, smart. All the right stuff. All the stuff Patrick was supposed to be looking for. They went out to a burger place during their lunch hour and then passed notes during Algebra II. She had a nice smile, didn’t expect too much out of him, liked to take it slow. She had a job and drove her dad’s old car and liked to hang out with him anytime he felt lonely. He liked the company. He liked the way it felt to rest his weary, wandering mind on the comfort of her shoulder. The first time they kissed, he felt like he’d done something terrible. The second time was a little better, but only because he was ready for it. By the third time, he figured he could get through this. After all, there was no good reason not to like her. So sometimes they’d go to Salamander Park and make out on the hood of her dad’s car and Patrick would close his eyes and think about school and sports and how good it felt to have a friend like her. Until he realized she must be more than a friend. Friends don’t make out on top of cars at parks. When she called him her boyfriend, told him she loved him, he played along. He did love her, he supposed, but none of this felt like he was always told it was supposed to. She liked to skip stones and he liked to watch her doing what she liked, so he gave it a try sometimes, too. Until a rainy day in a muddy bank when he pitched it a little too hard, slipped in the mud, and bashed his arm on the rocky floor of the shallow bank.

Right arm fracture. Eight weeks in a cast. Elbow still aches on rainy days.

He had tears in his eyes the first time he left home. Driving off to college was supposed to be a happy occasion, but he hated leaving everything behind. He hated breaking up with Rachel for the fifteenth time because he knew it wouldn’t last. None of the breakups lasted. He hated that he couldn’t say no to her, that he couldn’t let her move on. That whatever it was in him that was scared to make a commitment was strong enough to keep putting that poor girl through hell but not strong enough to help him understand why he felt this way. He hated everything about this day, from the way his mother cried when she hugged him goodbye to the way his father struggled to find those last few words of advice before he headed off to the look in Rachel’s eyes when Patrick told her _we’re just different people, you and me_. He had tears in his eyes as he took the turn too sharply and ended up in a drainage ditched just off the expressway. He didn’t stop crying until he realized he was in pain. He waited peacefully while medics and a tow truck showed up and he delayed college another semester.

Collarbone, left hip, chin. Cuts and scrapes. Severely bruised ego.

He packed his car with the essentials, gave a tearful but resolute goodbye, and said that maybe he’d be back in six months or so. Depended on the job, he said. He needed a change of pace and environment as it was becoming clearer by the minute that things would never work out as long as he stayed here. He couldn’t give Rachel what she wanted. Not forever. He couldn’t go to family cookouts and Christmases and his cousin’s wedding next May and he needed a reason to say no to those things. He needed a reason to believe that Rachel might be able to move on this time. That his parents could be satisfied with nothing but a phone call on weekends. No Sunday dinners and talking about life. He didn’t want to talk about life. He didn’t want to talk about anything. He just wanted to drive a million empty miles to a god-forsaken town to meet the quirkiest real estate agent/ travel agent/ photographer/ jack-of-all-trades and get a boring office job and sit behind a desk filing paperwork and crunching numbers. He wanted to have time to think about life and what that meant for him, if it meant anything at all. He didn’t want to meet anyone interesting or do anything risky or install any new life changes at the moment. Still, his mind wandered, his eyes strayed to corners of the room where there was nothing to look at but he couldn’t stop staring anyway. He would file away, paper after paper, empty thoughts flitting in and out breezily as he tried not to think about the next phase of his life. Only when he felt the sharp sting of the stapler on his finger did he awaken from the reality, and only then long enough to run to the next room for a breather, a bandage, and a bottle of something strong to drink alone in his room later.

Index finger, left hand. Two small puncture wounds, barely visible. Hurt like a bitch for about three hours.

The love of his life sat across him at an impromptu barbeque after work one fall evening. He couldn’t believe in a million years he’d ever be this lucky or feel this right. Finally, he had found his place. He had found the reason that everything he thought he knew had been so uncertain for so long. Now, sitting here with the sun to his back and a beer in his hand, there was almost nothing he could imagine taking him out of this state of bliss. But then he saw her. Rachel. Unmistakably Rachel. She looked beautiful and confused and it killed him to think that he was about to have to tell her what he’d never told anyone out loud. That she was never the problem. That there’s nothing wrong with her. That her love and her companionship meant so much to him, but that he’s got something else going now. Something wonderful and new and something he can’t bear to think he’ll lose. But when he saw David pacing even then, when he caught the silhouette of David in his room, when he realized they weren’t going to talk about it now, not tonight, not tomorrow, not for a while. When this all happened, he couldn’t even manage to walk home without collapsing on the front porch of Ray’s house, his hands covering his face, the sobbing, the self-loathing uncontrollable.

Broken heart. Externally imperceptible. Internally devastating. Recovery time uncertain.

They talked it out on a Friday night after a dance, a bottle of prosecco, and making up in the back room. They sneaked back to the motel, to an empty room they decided to use for the night. They let their clothes fall to the floor as they slowly refamiliarized with one another after what felt like an eternity apart. David pressed kisses to every inch of skin he could find. From the left knee scar to the forehead one, hands soothing over the sore elbow and the formerly battered collarbone. Lips tenderly kissing staple-marred fingertips, hands caressing over Patrick’s chest, over the heart that had broken exactly one week before.

He couldn’t take the scars away, and Patrick knew this. He wasn’t looking for that. He just wanted to be loved in spite of them. Because of them. He wanted out with the pain of the past, laying it all out, maps etched across his body whether visible or not, and he wanted David to learn it all, to learn every part of him. To love him. To be loved by him.

He would tell David the story of the scars, the ones David discovered, in time over the years as it became relevant. He would tell him of the other scars, too. Ones David also had. Ones David had been healing on his own. They couldn’t fix each other, and they wouldn’t anyway. They didn’t need to be fixed. They just needed to be seen. And David saw Patrick for all that he was, just as Patrick had seen him, as Patrick continued seeing him every day. As Patrick and David promised each other they’d keep seeing, keep looking, keep searching for and understanding every day of their lives until eternity took over where time had given up.

Third finger, left hand. A miracle recovery. A lifetime of healing.


End file.
